implement-improvements

Implement Improvements

Validate improvements from .turbo/improvements.md, propose a specific working set based on the backlog's actual contents, and run one lane per session: direct, investigate, or plan. Mixing lanes in a single run tangles commits, so the skill processes exactly one lane each time. Entries outside the confirmed working set stay in the backlog for future runs.

Task Tracking

At the start, use TaskCreate to create a task for each step:

1. Read the backlog
2. Validate and classify
3. Recommend, confirm, and prune stale
4. Run the chosen lane
5. Prune working-set entries from the backlog

Step 1: Read the Backlog

Read .turbo/improvements.md. If the file does not exist, there are no improvements to implement; stop.

Parse all entries, extracting for each:

• Summary (the ### heading)
• Type (direct, investigate, or plan; may be missing in older entries — trivial and standard are accepted as legacy aliases for direct and plan)
• Category
• Where (file paths or areas)
• Why (rationale)
• Ceiling and Revisit (present when the entry records a deliberate simplification)
• Noted (date)

Step 2: Validate and Classify

Improvements can go stale: files get renamed, code gets refactored, issues get fixed as side effects of other work. Before routing, validate each improvement and classify any entry missing a Type.

Validate

For each entry, verify whether the specific problem or opportunity described still exists. Do not rely on git log alone. Recent commits touching the same files do not mean the specific issue was addressed. Read the actual code and confirm:

1. Files exist — Do the referenced files/paths still exist? If not, the entry is stale.
2. Problem persists — Read the relevant code sections. Is the exact issue or opportunity described in the entry still present? Check the specific claims: if the entry says a function is uncalled, verify it has no callers; if it says error handling is missing, check whether it was added.
3. Revisit condition met — For an entry carrying a Revisit field, check whether the recorded condition now holds. The shipped simplification is present by construction, so its presence alone says nothing about whether the fuller version is worth building yet.
4. Stated scope matches the real gap — For an entry claiming missing coverage, read what existing tests already pin before accepting its scope: a test that substitutes a test double at a boundary pins the behavior on one side of it and leaves the boundary itself unpinned, so a request to cover several variants often reduces to the single boundary they share. Restate such an entry at its real scope, classify it Active, and use the restatement as its summary in Step 3.
5. Claimed consequence holds — For an entry claiming that two paths behave differently, or that a change would alter observable behavior, verify the claimed difference itself by reading what each path actually returns, exercising both when reading cannot settle it, rather than confirming only that the code it points at exists. When the named code is present but its stated consequence is false, restate the entry at the benefit it actually delivers, classify it Active, and use the restatement as its summary in Step 3; classify it Stale when no benefit survives.